Keep Playing Week 22

Game of the Week: Charades Challenge

This week Playworks is featuring a fun game to play with larger groups both in person or virtually! Players act out words or actions and practice asking for help when they feel stuck.

Skill Focus: 

Accepting Help From Others: Identifying when you need help and allowing others to help you, or asking others for help.

Play In-Person

Play Virtually

Simplified Game Instructions

# of people to play: 6+
Best for ages: 8+
Setup/Teaching Time: 5 minutes
Equipment needed: None

Goal: To guess the word that your teammate is silently acting out, and ask for help when needed.

How to Play:

  • This game is a charades race. Teams are trying to guess words and actions faster than the other teams.
  • Divide the group into smaller teams of 3-5 players. Have each team decide on an order, 1 will be the first actor, 2 will be the first guesser, 3 will be the next guesser and so on.
  • Game lead should gather the first actors in each group and privately tell them the word they are going to act out (on a card or piece of paper).
  • On the game lead’s signal,actors can return to their groups and begin acting out the word and the first guesser can try to guess the word. If the actor doesn’t know how to act out the word, they can ask another player (not the guesser) for help.
  • If the person guessing has trouble identifying the word being acted out, they can also ask another player for help. 
  • Once the person guessing identifies the word/action correctly, they give a high five to the actor and go to the game lead to get a new word and take on the role of actor. The next player in the agreed order then becomes the guesser.
  • Some teams may guess words faster than others, so before giving out a new word, the game lead should ask what word was guessed and then give the actor the next word on the list.
  • Teams should make sure  everyone has had a turn acting out or guessing a word from the list before anyone has a second turn.
  • The game is over once a team completes the list, or time runs out.

Sample List:

  1. Superhero
  2. Hula Hoop
  3. Storm
  4. Blender
  5. Tree
  6. Blow Dryer
  7. Curly Fry
  8. Dishwasher
  9. Air-five
  10. Brushing teeth
  11. Swimming
  12. Spider
  13. Bumblebee
  14. Bubblegum
  15. Snake
  16. Taco
  17. Bowling
  18. Magician

Game Debrief

  • How did it feel to accept help from a classmate when you were stuck? 
  • How did you know someone needed help? How can you show that you’d like to offer help?

Game Modifications

Age Group Modifications
  • For older students: To add variety and interest, ask the players to each submit 2-3 words to be acted out.

Another Way to Play
  • Play as a whole group and race the clock!  Decide on a group order for acting and instead of only one guesser, allow the whole group to figure out the word. 
Academic Application
  • Use academic content and act out characters from a story, parts of a plant, or animals.
  • Players must also complete an exercise before receiving the next word (ex: 5 jumping jacks, Ro Sham Bo/Rock Paper Scissors, etc).

illustration of magic ball game

Brain Break: Magic Ball

How to Play
  • As a group, cast a magic spell on the ball (using a dramatic magic word and movement) to imbue it with special properties.
  • Students will pass the ball around the circle, using their imaginations to act out whatever property the ball has acquired (ex. heavy, light, hot, cold, slippery etc.).
  • When the ball has been passed to every student and returned to the teacher, repeat the magic word to cast a new spell.

Additional Resources

Sample School Community Announcement

For the month of February we’re continuing to focus on the theme of social awareness. Social awareness helps you tune into your own feelings and notice how they influence your behaviors.

In our journey to social awareness, sometimes we must seek and accept help from others to move forward. Our weekly focus is accepting help from others, which shows that we’re willing to learn and grow. When you need help, ask for it, and allow others to help you. Here are some ideas of how you can practice asking for and accepting help from others at school: 1. If you don’t know what a word means, ask for an explanation; 2. Try out a new game, like this week’s Charades Challenge! Look for kids playing a game that you’ve never played before and ask them to teach it to you. Teach students to play in class, and then empower them to lead the game and teach others!

Core Recess Game

In addition to our Keep Playing Game of the Week, we’re sharing bi-weekly Core Recess Games that will help kids be active, practice leadership, maximize recess time, and have fun.

This week, play INTERCEPTION!

Learn how to play 

Return to the Keep Playing Homepage for archives of past weeks and other helpful resources.

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